By Pete Ruden
It’s only February, but baseball will be back in Iowa City when the Hawkeyes take on Loras College at Banks Field today.
Iowa is coming off of a series in Tampa, Florida, where it lost the series, 2-1.There was one thing that stuck out in those opening games, and that was the bullpen. On Feb. 17 and 18, Iowa got quality starts from Nick Gallagher and C.J. Eldred, and while Cole McDonald closed out the game just fine on Feb. 18, the same can’t be said about the Feb. 17 game.
Iowa allowed 9 runs in the eighth inning after building a 4-run lead.
In seven innings, Gallagher only allowed 1 run while striking out 4.
Then, it was on to the bullpen and disaster.
“[Gallagher] was at the end of the line, he was up in the zone and losing velocity, and we felt like it was the right time to get him out in his first start,” head coach Rick Heller said in a release after the game. “We went to the bullpen, and it wasn’t their night.”
On Sunday, Shane Ritter’s first start of the season didn’t go as planned, either; the sophomore was jumped on from the beginning, giving up 3 runs in just 1 inning.
Now, Iowa will try to move on from that. Loras, a Division-3 college in Dubuque, hasn’t played yet this season.
Ritter is set to take the mound again, and aside from Sunday’s debacle, he has shown flashes of potential. In the Big Ten Tournament semifinal game, he logged three shutout innings in just his second start of the season, earning a win.
Throughout the off-season, Heller and his pitching staff have been optimistic about its depth. It’s early in the season, so it’s hard to tell whether the first and third games were a fluke, but either way, the potential is there. Eldred said this was the deepest group he’s been a part of in his three years at Iowa.
“I think this year’s probably the most depth we’ve ever had,” he said on the team’s media day. “We’ve just got to stay healthy, and do what we do, and we’ll be just fine.”
While relief pitching was a little bit of a concern for part of the first series, offense wasn’t, for the most part.
Despite being shut out in the third game, the Hawkeyes picked up 4 runs in the first loss and the win.
Sophomore right fielder Robert Neustrom had a .455 average in the series, which could be improved into an even more monstrous number in the next game.
In addition to the sophomore from Sioux City, shortstop Mason McCoy has a .364 average with a home run to give Iowa a boost at the plate.
But with several newcomers and a junior-college transfer, Division-1 pitching isn’t something a lot of the team is accustomed to, and they’re not going to get it tonight either.
Still, McCoy thinks that getting plate appearances will help them in the long run.
“Definitely just to get some at-bats [is important]. A lot of these kids that are going to be playing a lot haven’t had college at bats, or they’ve played just in the fall, so I think the big thing is going to be getting some experience for them,” McCoy said at media day. “It’s going to be a big eye-opening experience for them just to settle in.”